King of Latin Jazz, Tito Puente

607 Words2 Pages

Tito Puente is known internationally for his contribution to Latin Music as a bandleader, composer, arranger and percussionist, and has even been given the nickname "El Rey" or the "King of Latin Jazz". He was considered a great composer of Afro-Cuban Jazz. Puente published more thnt 400 compositions, made contributions to over 100 recorded albums, and won four grammy awards in his career.

Tito Puente

Latin Jazz is a style of music that blends rhythms and percussion instruments of Cuba and the Caribbean with jazz and its fusion of European and African music. Latin jazz, also called Afro-Cuban jazz, was the culmination of the long interaction between American and Cuban musical styles. A distinctive syncopated rhythm and the Cuban habanera rhythm were endowed to American jazz music in the early 20th century. In the following decades, Latin American melodies and dance rhythms permeated the United States, while American jazz made its way into the Caribbean and Central and South America. In the 1940's the swing era expanded their repertory to include rumbas and congas. The d...

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